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Fazal Sheikh made his first trip to the holy Indian city of Vrindavan in 2003. Each year thousands
of women make their way there to join the community of widows who spend their days in the temples,
worshipping their god Krishna, and preparing for death. Hindus believe in the cycle of reincarnation
called ‘samsara’, from which they may be finally released into a higher state, at one with the
universal spirit, which is called ‘moksha’. Over the next three years, Fazal Sheikh became accepted
by the widows, who agreed to sit for their portraits and talked to him about their lives. Their
stories revealed how powerless some of the women had been under the strictures of traditional Hindu
law. They were victims of enforced marriage, physical violence, sexual abuse and neglect. Some had
been evicted from the family home once their children were married. Others had left of their own
accord. As Fazal Sheikh discovered, what the women find in Vrindavan is not just religious solace,
but in the sisterhood of other widows they find companionship and support. In his portraits their
faces are suffused with calm – in some cases they already seem to have reached a half-life, somewhere
between this world and the next – and their religious faith, in many ways the source of their past
troubles, finally brings them peace. This project was published as Moksha (Steidl 2005).